adv. (colloquial).—Applied to whatever may offend the taste; cf. ‘awful,’ ‘everlasting,’ etc. Also = very; exceedingly.
1509. BARCLAY, Ship of Fooles (1874), ii. 177. [There is the phrase] BESTELY dronken.
1561. T. NORTON, Calvin’s Institutions of the Christian Religion, i. 25. So BEASTLY folish are men. Ibid., 236. They are so much BEASTLY witted.
1611. DEKKER, The Roaring Girle [Works (1873), III. 159]. I thought ’twould bee a BEASTLY iourney.
1763. MRS. HARRIS [Lord Malmesbury’s Letters, I., 93]. We … had a BEASTLY walk through the Borough.
1778. JOHNSON in BURNEY, Diary etc. (1876), I., 37. ‘It moves my indignation to see a gentleman take pains to appear a tradesman. Mr. Braughton would have written his name with just such BEASTLY flourishes!
1798. LORD CLARE [Lord Auckland’s Correspondence (1862), III. 395]. The pamphlet is full … of BEASTLY blunders committed in the printing office.
1803. JOHN BRISTED, Ανθρωπλανομενος; or a Pedestrian Tour through Part of the Highlands of Scotland in 1801, I., 298. He … comes home every morning about two or three o’clock quite BEASTLY drunk.
1830. DISRAELI, Home Letters (1885), 3. The steam-packet is a BEASTLY conveyance.
1844. DICKENS, Letters, 28 Nov., I., 130. I was so BEASTLY dirty when I got to this house.
1865. Daily Telegraph, 24 Oct., 5, 3. He was in good health … looked almost ‘BEASTLY well,’ as I once heard it described.
1878. BROUGHTON, Cometh up as a Flower, XIV., 150. BEASTLY hole, London!
1882. T. A. GUTHRIE (‘F. Anstey’), Vice Versâ, i. He had a troublesome dryness in his throat, and a general sensation of dull heaviness, which he himself would have described as ‘feeling BEASTLY.’
1883. The American, VI., 28 July, 245. This BEASTLY English weather, you know.
1900. G. BOOTHBY, Across World for a Wife, iv. How do you do, Mr. Brudenell? BEASTLY weather, ain’t it?
1903. Globe, 24 Oct., i., 4. “Please God,” prayed a little girl the other night, “take away my BEASTLY cold to-morrow morning.” She was instantly pulled up by an orthodox nurse. “Never mind, Nannie,” cried an elder sister, “God understands baby language.”
